we all got wood and nails
by daggers.silver
Summary: he's not sure why he's here, of all places. he's never really considered himself to be that religious, not that he didn't have his fair share of monday mornings sat on creaking pew benches half-listening to half-truths spewed from overcompensating mouths growing up, but a lot of things ended when his parents' marriage did and going to church once a week was one of them.


A/N: okay broskies. i actually started this like... the day after 4x01 aired, so i guess this takes place closer to its events than the most recent episodes, but it's more vague happenstance. i pictured it days to a week after the funeral. i had a lot more planned for this, a lot more involvement with cheryl and toni specifically (bc i've always pictured cheryl having a history involved with the catholic faith due to her family and their upbringing for some reason, it's probably just the whole gothic aesthetic thing they have going for them but wtv), but unsurprisingly, it sort of tapered off due to circumstance pulling me away from my keyboard just for me to not have it in me to come back to it again, even though i hoped i might be able to. so i pulled it up on a whim tonight, whipped up a substitute stopping point that feels really weak to me but /post-able/ which is more important, and thought i'd post it before passing out tonight.

i always have these prefaces cause this is basically what happens nine times outta ten, but. yeah. just to keep in mind once y'all start to reach the end of it; if it feels weak or lackluster, that's because it kinda is jdvks i'm really sorry i never write decent, actually /planned/ endings for you guys.

spoilers for 4x01, but not much else of season 4, takes place after the funeral at some point

rated t just for swearing cause sometimes there's just no other way to express urself u know

lyrics from jesus christ - brand new

* * *

_well, jesus christ, i'm alone again_  
_so what did you do those three days you were dead?_  
_cause this problem's gonna last more than the weekend_

* * *

he's not sure why he's here, of all places.

he's never really considered himself to be that religious, not that he didn't have his fair share of monday mornings sat on creaking pew benches half-listening to half-truths spewed from overcompensating mouths growing up, but a lot of things ended when his parents' marriage did and going to church once a week was one of them. even before loose-lipped dinners punctuated by laughter and light became something lesser, dimmer, sluggish silence punctuated by the grating scrape of silverware on ceramic, it often seemed more habitual than anything. a passive participation his dad was far too accustomed to growing up himself to break, his mom too neutral to counter, and archie too young to care.

he still didn't care. not really. he's still not sure why he'd come here, of all places.

( maybe_ that's _why his life turned out the way it did. )

he's no expert by any means, not well-versed in the books themselves ( or _any _books for that matter ), old testament from new, commandments from beatitudes, but he thought he still knew the basics, at least. god the father, the son, the holy spirit. the birth, the death, the resurrection. judge not lest you be judged, love thy neighbor as yourself.

he thought god was supposed to be merciful or something, though.

and yet, he's also called the judge, righteous in wrath, just in punishment. the same guy who so loved the world he sent his son down to be brutally killed for its salvation also supposedly created a pit of fire where bad things go to suffer for all of eternity just for lifetimes of sin.

supposedly, even just one sin not repented is enough to justify an eternity of pain.

where is the line drawn, then, between judge and savior?

hell if he knew.

the afterlife is one thing, but does god dish out punishment during life too? is that a thing? karma, or whatever? it'd seem pointless if he did, seeing as anyone deserving of punishment was just going to get it literally forever the moment they dropped dead. seems pointless - overkill, even, but who's arhie to say?

( and yet, everything about this feels ordained, _cosmic _in nature, the very universe willing to tip in any direction but his, time and time again, too many times to be mere coincidence, too many times to be anything but _orchestrated _-

\- _did he do something _wrong? _what the fuck did he do wrong? - _)

the face staring down at him looks more worn than he remembers it being.

and he remembers it, doesn't he? this church specifically, more than the others they'd hop-scotched around from due to varying taste and one simply closing - this was the one they happened to be going to right before the divorce. different from the more protestant feel he'd been used to, but at the time just another church. just another alter, more pews, same book.

he remembers thinking it looked prettier than the other churches they went to. more elegant, clean.

cold.

he shivers.

( he definitely doesn't _shudder, _doesn't convulse for the span of a single second, doesn't feel the world shrivel and shrink around the edges for the briefest of moments before forcing it flat again with something far too close for comfort to desperation - )

the face staring down at him looks far more blank than you'd expect of someone with a band of thorns shoved in their scalp.

( and yet, he understands, even if he tries to avoid his own reflection far more than he probably should. )

( and yet, every time he manages to accidentally catch a glimpse of it, his face looks far more blank than you'd expect of someone who just lost their - )

( what did he do_ wrong? )_

archie's not one for pity parties. as much as he's engaged in them throughout the years ( as one does ), they never fail to make his skin crawl, his stomach flip, his lip curl in disgust, or at least something like it. he tries to ignore them as one does with flies, with mosquito bites, with verses about cutting your hair or owning a slave, with bands of thorns shoved in their scalp.

he tries to, he _tries, he's trying _-

( - he ignores them like he ignores the little voice in the back of his head asking _where is the line drawn, then, between pity parties and catharsis?_ _)_

he hears someone come in, the creak of the double doors, the following footsteps, but they don't get closer and they don't approach _him _so he ignores them in favor of that scalp, that band, those thorns. the face.

blank. void. empty.

_( he feels empty. )_

he stares at his hands, his fingers. curled around the back of the pew in front of him like it could crumble beneath the pressure and is surprised when something hot and simmering flares in response when it doesn't. the grain is smooth against his callous, sanded to perfection or perhaps just fake, painted near black with stain. he forces his fingers flat again and trails them over its edges, its curves, carefully, and tries to ignore the faint tremor to them,_ tries, _he _tries _-

a deep breath rattles his lungs, sudden, spine straightening to make room in his hunch to expand, contract, hitch somewhere between, and he has to remind himself not for the first time in the last several months how to breathe.

( it's hard to remember the how when you don't know the _why _. )

_what did he do? _

( what did he do to _deserve _this, anything and everything between now and the last several months, hell, the last _year, _what did he _do, _what did his _dad _do to deserve this, what did his dad fucking _do _to deserve a son who - )

_"what do you want from me?"_

( hasn't he already given? hasn't he given_ enough? _hasn't he given his blood, his sweat, his tears, hasn't his _dad _\- )

it's just a whisper, cast to the floor between his feet. barely audible despite the silence permeated throughout the room, thick, heavy, suffocating, _deafening _-

"what the fuck am i supposed to _do? _"

and it's deafening in the face of the silence permeated throughout the room, punctuated by his palm slamming down against the back of the pew in front of him like it could crumble beneath the pressure, shatter at a single touch like the quiet that's lifted, vanished into thin air, a phantom to the night, gone, _he's gone _-

he tries to, he _tries, he's trying _\- and yet, no single breath will fill out completely, merely hitch somewhere between each inhale until he's curling forward, hunching closer til the space between his brows meets grain sanded to perfection or perhaps just fake, more elegant, clean, _cold, _until something warm blooms itself light against his shoulder.

he tries not to ignore the little voice at the side of his head when it says _hey, sh, sh, just try to breathe, okay, one breath at a time, just breathe _-

but it's hard to, when his lungs feel like sponges, water-logged and soggy, overused, when his body doesn't feel like his own, too still and too trembling all at once, frozen stiff and cold, a statue in an earthquake, when his skull feels like it's shivering and shrinking at the edges, splitting like eggshells cracked too hard against the rim of a bowl, scalp force-fed _euphorbia milii _until he thinks he might be sick all over the carpet.

but the warmth shifts, presses, curls around the shape of him as a twin sensation plants down over his knuckles blanched white against near black. the voice isn't little anymore and he doesn't ignore it when it rings closer, clear, crystal, _"archie, i need you to look at me," _and that warmth clasps tighter until his fingers go lax.

it's somehow easier to breathe staring into fire.

a dark brown, near black, cold and hot at the same time. mesmerizing. smooth orange framing pale skin paler against signature red lips that twitch ever so slightly up at the corners as his lungs and his stomach try to flip themselves upright.

"...there you go... that's better."

but it's not, it's not _better,_ _it's not okay, _it never _will be_ again if it ever even was, between music teachers and serial killers and mob bosses and juvie wardens and juvie gaurds and fucking _bears, has it ever really been fucking okay? _what did he _do_ \- was it just fraternizing with geraldine grundy that kicked all of this off in the first place, the first domino to set loose an avalanche of reactions, corrupted him and _every fucking thing_ around him? or did it span further back than that, through the years, one after the other, one little thing overlooked, understated, brushed aside and forgotten? or was it the simple act of being fucking born at all?

what is he supposed to_ do _to undo this, for this to _stop? _what more does he have to lose, to give? what more could his _dad _have fucking given? _what more? _

and what could archie ever give that could compare to that?

anything - he'd give _anything. _anything to just make it _stop. _just make it fucking stop, _please._

archie stares into fire, and feels himself burn.

he wants to say something, to cheryl, to toni hovered close by, to the face watching all three of them from its place of bloodless agony, for caring enough to appear out of nowhere, to happen to be here on the same night in the same church and bother to offer any kind of solace to _him _of all people, a divine intervention, fucking _orchestral ordination, _but his tongue nails itself to the roof of his mouth and the hot band around his skull clamps tight on any thought that could possibly turn to spoken word. yet what he wants more is for _him _to say something, for that _face _to unravel and spill its secrets as willingly as it spilled its blood to open ears even _once, just once, _anything at all, to break free from its mask of indifference , blank, void, empty, to do _something, say something._

anything.

but instead he stares, watches, waits. breathes, even though he's not sure he's ever known why.

( nothing. )

but he knows somewhere soul-deep that he'll never fan that flame long enough for an answer.

* * *

_so, do you think that we could work out a sign_  
_so i'll know it's you and that it's over so i won't even try?_

* * *

A/N: all in all, i'm more unhappy with what i didn't do than what i did, but i'm so tired of never posting my ideas just because i lose the effort to fully flesh out the original visions of them. if what i /did/ get down before i lost my groove is good, i like to find ways to put it out into the world, even if it means a rather shitty ending jdskvl

but i hope it was decent enough for y'all. i just have a really specific niche for religious imagery and contemplation and never really have opportunities to write it (me, watching shit like supernatural and having every opportunity to write fanfic for it hdskv), but people grieve in different ways, one of them being a.) falling back on childhood concepts and/or b.) religion, so i seized the moment to satisfy said niche and let archie be fucking mad at the universe for a hot sec because ffs. he can't catch a break. i know the most recent blow is something that nobody planned or could control and hit more than just fictional characters, but this is the avenue in which i choose to process all my shit, especially with riverdale since it doesn't feel intimidating to write like other fandoms (cough supernatural). anyways idk where i'm going with this but !

kudos & comments are always appreciated and i honestly, truly love all of you who actually read this complete word vomit i toss out at random onto this hellsite. thank youu


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